NBER Center for Aging and Health Research This application is to renew NIA funding for the NBER Center for Aging and Health Research for the next five years. The Center has two primary aims. The first is to integrate and support an extensive network of research and related activities in aging at the NBER. The second is to stimulate new research development on aging issues, systematically advancing the science of aging-related research by economists. We propose seven interrelated themes of research for the next five years of the center: (1) trends in health and disability, (2) health care costs and productivity, (3) implications of health policy reform, (4) possibilities for extending working livs, (5) work and retirement around the world, (6) health and financial wellbeing, and (7) the broad reach of education. These themes are selected because of their particular relevance to the wellbeing of people as they age, and because of their timeliness based on the challenges and opportunities of the next two decades. The Center will continue to operate through four Core components with separate, but highly coordinated functions: an administrative and research support Core, a program development (pilot) Core, an external innovative network Core, and an external research resources support and dissemination Core. The functions are coordinated in the sense that the thematic directions of our research agenda, as they evolve over time, will be jointly supported by each of the Core components of the Center, creating an intra-Center synergy in new research development.